If Dreams Were True
by fivesteamboatsxD
Summary: Brennan wakes up from an unusual dream and finds that there are suppressed issues that need to be addressed, there are feelings she didn't know she could have, and there is a person who needs to know.
1. Need You Now

_It's a quarter after one, I'm all alone and I need you now._

It was spring, her favorite time of year. The leaves came back on the trees, flowers spurted forth from the ground, the grass grew tall, the birds sang, and the sun shined. Nature had never looked so beautiful than in the spring, so she had thought frequently.

She was outside. The wind was cool, but the sun gleamed and the temperature was right around seventy-seven degrees Fahrenheit, which was perfect to her. She was surrounded by greenery and then, there were the gorgeous wild flowers of bright vivid colors. She was in a field on a hill over looking a forested area. It seemed so familiar, and then she recognized it to be part of the reserved property that the city could not destroy for construction. She felt a warm smile ease over her face.

She began running through the field, fast and careless, taking nature in. She laughed for no apparent reason, it felt nice. She continued to run but then something made her stop.

There were people, divided into two parties. There was on the left side—people she had never met, except for a few somewhat familiar faces. Then, on the right side were people she knew, in fact she could name every single one of them. She wondered why these people were joined together. They sat on quaint white painted benches. In all, she would guess there were forty of them.

There was something of a threshold in front of the people. Three beautiful familiar faces smiled jovially, all visions in light blue flowing dresses. Three men on the opposite side appeared dashing in deep black suits. In between the triplets were two people: one standing solemnly beside the other who was wearing a wide grin.

She recognized the latter. Her heart skipped. He looked fantastic, beautiful, perfect, and every other good thing in the world. He was decked out in black, looking even more dashing then the men to this left. He wore a white dress shirt under his suit jacket, rather than black like the other men. His bow tie was slightly off set, but it didn't make him any less wonderful, if anything it only increased his value to her. She noted the belt buckle was not the one she had become accustomed to, which disappointed her only the tiniest moment.

A soft familiar tune began to play through a keyboard that had been set up to the left of the threshold; she identified the young clean-cut psychologist she only pretended to detest (when she actually found him very bright…perhaps in the wrong field, though he seemed knowledgeable in that area.)

Then parties both rose to their feet and looked at her—or so she thought.

The man she knew so well's jaw slackened, leaving his mouth slightly ajar. She saw him mouth something, but it was inaudible and she was never any good at reading lips.

Then, she had the most bizarre sensation—one she hadn't thought was possible.

Something passed through her frame, right through, as if she was transparent and only a paranormal entity—something she didn't believe in. Sure enough, the eyes of the parties followed the passerby's every step and she marched forward.

The woman walked with an unfailing rhythm, although it seemed rehearsed. She was a vision in white lace; the dress flowed with the wind. The woman was a little taller than average height for a woman, she looked to be in-shape, and her medium brunette-auburn hair cascaded in loose, natural curls down her back.

She wasn't sure what she was seeing, a ceremony of some sort. She couldn't see the woman's face. She couldn't understand the situation or assess why she was there. But she felt calm. She smiled, even through her confusion. Everyone looked so happy, that it was impossible not to feel the same.

It was her, she realized. That woman…it was her! She was the one who stopped beside the dashing man and held his hand. She was the one who he looked at like he was staring at the most beautiful thing in the world. It was her.

Her heart swelled. She smiled, tears threatened to leave her eyes. It was beautiful. It was a wedding. It was something she had never wanted. It was something she swore she would never have. This, however, didn't look so bad. She was excited. She wasn't sure why she wasn't looking into the man's eyes and why she had the bird's eye view of things, but she dismissed it. She felt valued. She felt happy. She felt full.

The ceremony continued much the same. She still could not obtain a view of the bride's face. She was dying to catch a glimpse of the sheer happiness that must be shown all over her. The promises of unconditional love and faithfulness ensued and the judge—she presumed—announced them as husband and wife and allowed them to share their first marital kiss.

She felt anxious, she wanted to feel his soft lips against hers, but she couldn't feel anything physically.

Something didn't calculate right in her thought process. Why did she have this vantage point? Why couldn't she feel his lips? Why couldn't anyone see her? Why could people pass through her? Why didn't she remember dating him, kissing him, planning the wedding? She couldn't recall any of it, no matter how she hard tried to call back those supposed memories.

She was never asked on a date by him. He never proposed to her. This wasn't right. Something was wrong with her or worse—something was wrong with her previous notion.

Her fears were confirmed with the couple turned around to their guests, hands joined in the air.

It _wasn't_ her. She _was___wrong about what she was seeing. She was right about everything she didn't want to be correct about. The face of the man's new bride was foreign. She had never seen that woman. It _wasn't _her.

That wasn't what bothered her most, though. It was that he looked so happy. He looked thrilled as he pressed his forehead to hers and then pressed a kiss to her lips.

It was then that she knew she loved him. She didn't merely suspect it anymore, she knew. She had never said anything to him about her feelings because she wasn't sure it was possible. She wasn't that person. She couldn't fall in love. She couldn't mess things up. Now, it was too late. He had moved on, just like he promised. She could never tell him now. She had just witnessed the man she had spent five years taking for granted marry someone that wasn't her. She had always thought that if she ever changed her mind about marriage, it would be with him. She always figured that they'd end up together at some point.

Not now. It could never happen now.

"I love you, Booth" she whispered out loud. She knew nobody could hear her, but she didn't care. Tears stung her eyes. Her heart wrenched. Her breathing hitched.

"I love you" She screamed this time as loud as she could, until she felt the vitality of her voice snap back to a whimper; it didn't make the slightest of a difference.

She didn't know what to do, now. She felt out of place. She felt like an intruder. She felt forgotten. She felt abandoned by the one person she thought would never abandon her.

Then, everything was gone.

Brennan woke up drenched in sweat and panting in a cold dark room in a big empty bed, alone. She looked around. Everything was normal. It was just as it was before she had gone to bed. She looked at the alarm clock: three AM. She could try to go back to sleep, but she feared that the dream would reoccur.

She didn't know why she had that dream, but it scared her. She resolved to do anything she could to prevent it. She didn't like how happy he was in that dream. It wasn't that she didn't want him to be happy; she just didn't want him to be _that_ happy without her. She was a selfish, stupid, horrible woman who didn't deserve him.

She stared at the wall in front of her, not sure what she should do. In her desperate confusion, anger, pain, and disappointment she reached her hand towards her nightstand. Her hands fumbled around blindly until they found what she was looking for: her cell phone. She pressed the "one" button for two seconds and was met with a three rings.

"Hello?" A low voice answered groggily.

"Booth, it's me, Bones" She said in the smallest voice she could manage.


	2. Realize

_If you'd just realize what I just realized, we'd never have to wonder if we missed out on each other._

"Bones?" He asked, still sleepy yet sounding more alert after hearing her voice. He looked over at the alarm clock. It was a little after three in the morning. "Bones, why the hell are you calling me at three in the morning?"

"I just…wanted to see how you're doing…" She lied and it was evident, but Booth humored her.

"Could you ask me again at…I don't know…eight when I pick you up?" He reminded her.

"I lied; I have something I need to talk about, I had a bad dream." She said quietly as she watched the sobering rain patter onto her window.

"Can it wait five hours?" He asked.

"I don't think so. Sorry to wake you up, though" She said, now feeling a little guilty, but she knew that she needed someone to tell. And since this directly included him, she thought him best to consult. She felt silly, too, like a little girl.

"Okay, what was your dream?" He asked, now sitting up in his bed and turning on his bedside lamp.

"It's…complicated. I'm not sure exactly what it was. But you were in it." She slowly said.

"Dreaming about me, Bones?" He laughed and tried to maintain his humor despite his disorientation.

"Yes. You were getting married" She stated. She didn't laugh at his joke. She was so confused and afraid.

"To who?" He asked hopefully. If she had dreamt that they got married, that had to mean something, right? Maybe she loved him, now. Finally. He scolded himself for that thought. He was supposed to be moving on. He made a promise. But he couldn't help loving her.

"Well, at first, I thought it was me."—his breathing halted for a moment—"Then, at the end of the dream after you kissed her, you turned around and it wasn't me. It was—well, I've never seen her face before."

"I don't understand what was so terrible about that" He said, confused. He understood from his perspective. He understood that marrying anyone besides Bones was not only improbable, impossible, but the most terrible thing he could do. He could never love anyone the way he loved Bones.

She looked down at her feet and pulled the discarded blanket toward her. She fumbled with the hem of her shirt and bit her lip.

"Bones?" He asked; unsure if she was still on the line with him.

"Yeah, I didn't think you would…sorry I woke you Booth." She said as she hung up the phone. Calling Booth had been a very bad idea.

He sat dumbfounded still listening to the clicking dial tone.

What had he said wrong? Why was him getting married a bad thing for Bones? She didn't believe in marriage. She wouldn't care, right? Sure, she might ramble some anthropological protest at him, but she wouldn't cry—which she sounded so close to doing. So, why did she consider his wedding a nightmare? Especially if she wasn't the bride…why did she sound so afraid?

He tried to get back to sleep but could not seem to escape the broken sound of her soft, quiet voice.

He drove by her apartment in the morning at the time they had agreed upon with coffee, she wasn't home. Her car was not in its usual space; she was already gone. He groaned and continued to drive to the institute.

"Bones! Where the hell is she?" He called, a little frustrated with her absence and a little anxious to discover why she was so fearful.

"She's in her office" Cam said, barely looking up from the remains that lay on the platform table.

He nodded and walked swiftly toward the door only to see Angela step in front of him.

"She doesn't want to see you. Why do you think she drove herself?" Angela asked seething, terrifyingly defensive. She was usually so jovial and friendly, but this Angela was truly scary. Booth had seen a lot of scary things, being a sniper, but Angela's protective side was definitely high on the list.

"What? Why doesn't she want to see me?" He asked, confused.

"I don't know, you tell me!" She glared and lightly shoved him back.

"Angela—" He warned.

"Maybe something about a late night phone call you blew off?"

"I answered it! It was three o' clock in the freaking morning! Excuse me if I was a little disoriented!" His tone escalated to match hers.

"She called you, _scared_ out of her goddamn mind, about having a nightmare about _you_! And it's _not so terrible_?" She clenched her teeth and shoved him harder this time. Booth staggered back and raised an accusing finger and Angela.

"She doesn't believe in marriage. She doesn't love me. I don't understand why she's upset that she had a _dream_—you know, a _dream_…completely made up—that I got married and it wasn't her"

"It's a very real possibility to her, _Booth_. She would pretty much lose you to another woman."

"We're just partners, though" He repeated Bones' words sadly.

"_Really, _yeah okay, we both know that's crap."

"I'm not getting married anytime soon. I don't even have a girlfriend!" He argued.

"But you could…"

"What?"

"Maybe you should use your _oh-so-superior_ FBI 'gut' to read between the lines. When Brennan—of all people—calls you in the middle of the night, desperate and scared because in her dream you were happily marrying someone other than her—it means something!" She ranted.

"She doesn't love me, Angela, I would—I would know." He found himself reiterating the words he had told Gordon Gordon—aside from the name—and he felt ashamed. If everyone saw it…then maybe it was there.

"Apparently not" She said coldly as she pushed past him and walked towards the lab.

"Angela!" He called after her. He followed her a few brisk steps and caught her arm."

"Get your hands off me, _Agent_" She said coldly as she slapped his hand.

"Bones, she—she told me she didn't love me. I told her I loved her! I told her and I tried to love her, but she wouldn't let me! What's your answer for that? What the hell does _that_ mean?"

"She was scared." She answered as if it was obvious. She then stepped forward, swiped her card and looked back at him. "Goodbye Booth"

He meandered back to Brennan's closed door. He felt like he'd been there before.


	3. I Wanna Know What Love Is

_I wanna know what love is, I want you to show me. _

_I wanna feel what love is. I know you can show me._

Booth knocked on her office door, despite being warned.

"I'm working" a frenzied voice answered through the door.

"Let me in." He softly commanded. The door opened only slightly enough for her to stand in the gap. He immediately took notice of puffy dark circles under eyes and a tired appearance.

"What do you want?"

"I brought you a coffee." He handed her the cup of java.

"Thank you." She took the cup and sipped out of it slowly.

"Can I come in, or are we discussing last night like this?" He gestured between them and arched his eyebrows.

"There's nothing to discuss." She whispered, looking down.

"Hey, hey, Bones…there is" he said as he lifted her chin to look in her eyes. He, then, uncomfortably and unwillingly dropped his hand. "I'm sorry. I-I wasn't thinking earlier. Will you tell me now?"

"Come in" she opened the door more to allow him inside her office. When he took comfort on her couch, she closed the door and joined him. "Its okay" she started. "I don't know what I was thinking…calling you at that time. I knew you must've been sleeping. I was just really disturbed. It was illogical. I'm sorry." She scolded herself and refrained from wrapping her arms around him and sobbing. She knew that was far too irrational for her.

"Hey," he spoke softly and reached his hand to comfort her back. "Don't worry about it. I would've called you too. You can call me anytime, you know that." He ran his hand up and down from her shoulders to the middle of her back.

"I feel asinine. I know it's just a dream. It's just events from my day compiled with what's in my mind…it didn't mean anything. I'm just—I can't stop thinking about it!"

His heart swelled as the beautiful woman in front of him, the one he loved, tried to explain and rationalize her fears. She feared losing him. She feared being without him. Had she said that her dream was made from what was on her mind? Was his wedding on her mind a lot? _Their _wedding?

"It's okay to be scared. Fear isn't rational, Bones, but it is human." He paused. "Why does me getting married—in your dream—scare you?" He asked. He groaned internally, feeling a little bit too much like Sweets.

"It's not you getting married that bothers me. It's that it was with someone else." She swallowed against her words, she didn't like to admit that, but Temperance Brennan was not a liar. And it was very obvious when she tried to lie. "It's how happy you looked when you said 'I do' or when you kissed her. All of our friends were there…and I thought it was me. I thought it was me. I thought _I_ was getting married" She shook her head and looked up at him with lost, moist blue eyes.

"You don't believe in marriage"

"I know! That's what perturbs me. I don't believe in such a contrived and archaic notion but strangely, foolishly, I wanted to be the one marrying you and putting that smile on your face and kissing you, not her. I was so jealous and confused." She babbled, not being able to silence herself.

He tried to abstain from pulling her into his arms and kissing her senseless.

"You were jealous?"

"It's irrational, I know. Despite my highly evolved sense of rationality, I am still frequently jealous."

"Over me?"

"Yes…sometimes when there's an attractive female suspect I wish I could incriminate her somehow just to…" She shook her head again; she couldn't believe she was admitting this.

"Get rid of her?" He fished, a smirk tugged at his lips.

"I suppose. Anthropologically speaking, it's perfectly normal for mates to be envious of each other and get defensive, because males had to fight for their women." She would normally get very irritated at the idea of a woman being fought over and considered property. But if she did get irritated, it didn't show. This time. "I don't think that excludes women, though. Of course we're not mates..." She rambled and then blushed. _Could you sound any more inane?_

"I don't think you're irrational for being jealous. I get jealous too Bones."

"Over me?" She laughed sardonically as she gestured to herself.

"Don't act like it's so hard to believe!" He chuckled. "Yes, over you, Bones."

"Why?" She couldn't help but wonder what could possibly make him jealous. Couldn't he see what he did to her? Biologically, speaking? Not to mention all the unspoken desires her dreams expressed.

"Because it seems like everyone, every suspect we encounter, all _my_ coworkers, all _my_ friends, _my family_, your coworkers,_ everyone_ wants to _bed_ my partner. It's extremely annoying watching so many sleazy guys trying to get some with my partner." _And knowing I never could._

"Well, objectively, I would say I'm a very desirable woman"

"Modesty really isn't your forte…" He laughed. Better to make a joke than come off like a pervert. She wasn't wrong about being desirable; he knew that better than anyone. "You said you wanted to be the one…?" He couldn't finish that sentence.

"The one in the dream?"

"Yes. The one in the dream that I uh, marry"

"Yes; I follow you." She nodded and motioned for him to continue.

"You really feel that way, Bones? You want to kiss me?" He asked, he meant for it to come out teasingly, instead it sounded strangled: like he couldn't wrap his head around it.

"At times—yes" She admitted. His mouth opened slightly for a second, but then he remembered the next question he'd wondered.

"You wanted to 'put that smile on my face'?" He smirked, chickening out.

"Yes."

"You already do that" He smiled as he stroked her face. Well things were all damned to hell already, since they were being honest…

"You wanted to _marry_ me?"

"I don't know. I've never believed in marriage and we're not in a relationship, but I wanted to be the bride. I wanted it to be my wedding with Angela as my maid of honor and you as the groom. I wanted to say 'I do.' I don't know why. This is so uncharacteristic of me, but yes, I wanted to marry you."

"In your dream? What do you think that means?" He ignored the pang of irritation that reminded him he was going a little too Freud with this.

"Dreams don't….I don't know Booth. I know that I woke up sweating and I wanted to call you. I felt like I should tell you something." She bit her lip.

"Felt?" He didn't miss the past tense.

"Feel." She corrected and awkwardly smiled at him "I don't know how to do this. I'm inexperienced in this." She warned him. He smiled and reached his hand out toward her. She grasped it. "I get nervous around you sometimes and I don't know what to say." She laughed nervously. "I'm not very good at this" she apologized, but he waved her off and she unsteadily continued. The twinkle in his eyes was motivating her to continue.

"You've changed my mind about nearly everything and that dream…it 'woke me up', if you will, and I know that it means _something_. I don't believe in psychology but I know that being upset about your wedding is meaningful. And I'm not sure exactly what to say. I don't know if I'm doing this right. I don't want to ruin this again. My fight or flight is taking over and something is telling me that I should fight. I think it's because I-I I love you."

"Bones…" He saw a tear barely escaping her eyes and let go of her hand to wipe it away.

"Is it too late? I mean, I know you used to love me but am I too late?" She asked with an embarrassing glimmer in her eye.

"You could never be too late, Bones" He whispered as his eyes took the same misty glint.


End file.
